The Tales of Truth and Honesty
by Jillcb
Summary: This is a collection from Game of Thrones. Each one will be about a particular character. I am starting with Ned Stark, and his ending up as the King's Hand. When Ned arrives in King's Landing it doesn't take him long to realize there is something wrong at the heart of the capital. As he battles to run the Kingdom he fears it will cost him his own personal integrity.
1. Chapter 1

An Honourable Man

Ned Stark looked out of the window, down onto the square outside. Kings Landing was busy now, people coming and going, selling their wares, gossiping in groups. He had been in the capital for two months and already he was missing Winterfell. The northern lands maybe colder in climate than Kings Landing, but there was a natural warmth there, that seemed absent in the world he had recently entered.

Someone had described Kings Landing as a nest of vipers; and as he tried to work out whom he could trust, never had an observation felt more accurate. It seemed as if he had walked into a place of endless speculation, secrets and half-truths spewed on every wall. What was true? Whom could he rely on? After a couple of days he had felt totally lost, and even two months on it was no clearer.

He came from a place where a man, called a spade, a spade, where truth was paramount. He lived his life serving people, and doing his duty. Winterfell was a reflection of himself. Life there was hard but straight forward and true. He had brought his children up to respect everyone, no matter where they came from. Now he had brought Arya and Sansa to King's Landing, and already he was wondering if he had made a terrible mistake.

He had said yes to his friend the King out of loyalty. He had never really wanted to leave the north, and he had never wanted to become the King's Hand. But once asked despite Catelyn's protest, saying no was never an option. It was his duty and a man lived and died by his duty. If he was a man of true worth, then making sacrifices was what made you, what you were. Yet deep inside his mind was an unanswered question, and one he was being forced to ponder more than he wanted too.

As he thought about the people who dominated the royal court would it be possible to live by his convictions, in this cesspool of deceit and lies? He had always sworn that he would never comprise his principals, but suddenly it felt as if the world he now inhabited was becoming less and less clear, the rules more and more stretched. He had always sworn that he would stay true to his upbringing, but now the lines were becoming ever more blurred. In this palace of smoke and mirrors he no longer truly understood what he was seeing, and more important what he could do. If only Catelyn was by his side, how he missed her honesty and straight forward opinions.

There was a lack of honesty in the capital. It seemed that so many people hid behind smoke-screens, never quite saying what they meant. Varys, Bailesh for two, Ned could never quite work out what either of them was about. Both had come to him the last couple of days whispering things in his ears, sharing information yet neither could supply the answers that Ned was after. Couldn't or wouldn't? Ned maybe a blunt northerner but he knew when people were not being fully honest with him.

Yet in a way they were both playing their roles, as given to them by their paymasters. But what concerned Ned more was his old friend and comrade Robert Baratheon. The years as King had changed him, Ned could no longer deny it to himself. To begin with he had dismissed such thoughts, and merely put it down to the ways of the court. But as he had got down to business, checked the books, Ned knew there was something stinking at the heart of King's Landing. He also realized his friend now cared less about duty and more about taking advantage of what was available. He had grown fat on the excess of his position.

His pride had been crushed, he was surrounded by spies and plotters. He was stuck in an unhappy marriage with a wife Cersei whom he had never loved. He had allowed the once proud capital to become a place of intrigue, and let its coffers run dry. It felt as if he no longer cared enough, to even be bothered, beyond the next tournament or drinking session that he took part in. It truly saddened Ned, to see his old friend so truly beaten down, the life completely drained from him. But worse was the indifference to how people saw him. As he shouted and whored his way from one day to the next, Ned could only reflect on the young man he had once been. He had been a man so full of life, and while he had always lived on the edge, it was Robert who had led the rebellion and taken on the Mad King.

But now he was a shadow of what he had once been. He had grown bored and spoilt and allowed the Kingdom to become corrupted. For Ned he struggled to reconcile just how he fitted into this surly place. All of a sudden he was forced to think the unthinkable to go against the very principles that he had always held so dear. The more he stayed in Kings Landing the more he realized he was now stuck in a maze, from which there was no obvious way out. He was suddenly being forced to comprise on his own moral code, as he struggled to keep the Kingdom upright and operating. Being forced to work with people whose aims and ambitions he had no clear idea about.

In doing so he could feel himself merging into the deceit that surrounded him. As he watched the people come and go outside, he reflected on a time of more simplicity. In a time when a man's word was his honour and you did the right thing, for the right reason. But now he struggled to see through people's whispers, they would tell him one thing, then another, and somehow he had to cut through what was the truth and what were the lies. It was enough to make him want to pack his bags, and take his girls back northwards.

Yet that did not take into account the one quality he possessed deep inside himself, and that was his stubbornness. He would not let the lies get the better of him. For as long as he remained in the capital he would stay determined to get to the bottom of what the whisperers were telling him, whatever the cost to himself. For he realized the one thing he had through everything, was his honour and integrity. He was determined to stay true to it, otherwise he knew he was no better than the rest of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Fury Inside**

 **As Catelyn Stark spent her first night locked away, she had plenty of time to consider her folly. In allowing Jaime Lannister to go she had to the northern men outside betrayed them. More than that as she relived the look of horror on Rob's face, she had let him down. In doing so she had put a wedge between them, one she knew would take time to heal.**

 **In part she had regretted her behaviour. Yet deep inside her heart another feeling of intense fear and fury burned inside her; the thought that she would never see her daughters again.**

 **How could Rob know what that felt like? From the moment that Catelyn had left Riverrun to go north, the one thing she would die to protect were her children. She had been a proud mother of five northern children, but now who knew if she'd see any of them again. She knew she would do anything to keep them safe, but now she felt she'd failed them all, including Robb.**

 **Bran was now unable to walk, and heaven knows where he was now. She had left him and Rickon alone in Winterfell, and now their home had been overrun. She prayed everyday that they would remain safe, but she knew how cruel the world could be. Could her boys be lucky enough to avoid the numerous pitfalls that lay in wait for them? The world was full of people who would take advantage of them and worse, if they'd discovered who they were. She prayed so hard for them, that at times she felt barely able to function.**

 **She had allowed her oldest daughter Sansa to go to King's Landing, despite knowing the deceit that reigned there. Her gentle Sansa who had been brought up on tales of gallant Princes and Knights, who since she had been little had dreamed about becoming a faithful Queen. Why had Catelyn failed to protect her daughter from her own naivety? Instead she had waved her away and now she was the Lannister's prisoner, and god knows what they were putting her through.**

 **Then there was Arya, the independent spirit who had always gone her own way. In her more optimistic moments, Catelyn dared to believe that Arya's determination and stoic personality would enable her to move into the background, and somehow survive against the odds. But in other ways she too knew little of the world outside her home of Winterfell. King's Landing was full of back-stabbers and double-crossers her beloved Ned had written enough times, when he was working there. Arya had a trusting nature at times, and she feared that would put her in danger.**

 **Ever since she had lost her Ned it had been a constant stream of bad tidings and betrayals. The Starks had gone from disaster to disaster, as the Lannisters ran everything from King's Landing. Now her first born was the hope of the north. He was little more than a boy and here he was leading an army. She cried frustrated tears as she realized that now she had messed this up too, the trust between them now was gone.**

 **Oh Ned what have I done? She wondered to herself sadly. As the moon outside shone into the little room another face joined the long sad procession. But this face made her flinch in bitterness, as she contemplated the dark-haired interloper that had shared their family home. The child she had never learnt to accept. When she had told Talisa of the time she had prayed for Jon Snow's recovery from the pox, she remembered what she'd said about the God's punishing her for not accepting the little boy. Maybe it was true after all, she thought.**

 **But as a mother she could not give up entirely, not if there was the smallest chance of her seeing her children again. That was why she had let Jaime go, that was why she would do it all again another day, if she thought that it had any chance of being successful.**

 **Maybe one day when Robb was a father he would understand her viewpoint better. He would appreciate that just because your children grew up, the desire to protect them never dies inside of you.**

 **As she attempted to settle down for the night, a picture of her husband came into her mind. She had not instantly fallen in love with the dour Northern man, but in time they had grown to love one another very much. Their's had been a happy union, completed when their children had come along. They would promise one another that if anything happened to one of them, the other one would always be there for them.**

 **As Catelyn's eye's began to close bitter tears ran from them, as she considered how her vow had come to sound so hollow now. She had not protected them, she had failed in her moral duty, and now she did not know if she would see any of them again. She thought of Brienne and all she could do was hope that she could get Jaime to King's Landing safely. She hated the idea of having to rely on the Lannister's yet, surely even Cersei loved her own children like she did. Surely having returned Jaime, she could find it in her own heart, to return Sansa to her?**

 **As the moon began to lower in the sky and the darkness descend over the room she remembered happier days. Ned, her and the children running around the woods, cries of laughter and annoyance as her daughter's fell out again. Robb teaching Bran how to use a cross-bow, with Rickon at her side. Ned running around like a mad thing, trying to keep up with his youngest sons. How those days had felt as if they would never end. But they had, and now she was counting the personal cost of it all.**

 **But she was a Tully of Riverrun, and her children were stubborn Starks, as long as the sun rose in the east and went down in the west, she would never give up entirely on her children. She would do anything she could in order to retain some hope, even if it meant being locked up in an airless room. She would greet the new day believing that at last she would get the news she had prayed for since her children had left, and she had been parted from them. She could never look Ned in the face again, if she failed, and she wouldn't.**


End file.
